IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 13, NO.

2, JUNE 2003 2337

Fabrication of Winding Model of

High-Tc Superconducting Transformer for
Railway Rolling Stock
H. Kamijo, H. Hata, H. Fujimoto, T. Bohno, K. Sakaki, H. Yamada, M. Iwakuma, and K. Funaki

Abstract—We fabricated two high- superconducting coils TABLE I

that simulated the winding of a traction transformer for railway SPECIFICATIONS OF 4 MVA HIGH-T SUPERCONDUCTING TRANSFORMER FOR
rolling stock. The multi-layer solenoid coil to simulate the pri- ROLLING STOCK
mary winding of the transformer had five layers with a single
Bi2223 superconducting tape. The closed solenoid coil to simulate
the secondary winding of the transformer had one layer with
eight parallel Bi2223 superconducting tapes. We measured the
voltage–current, AC loss and current sharing characteristics of
these coils cooled in saturated liquid nitrogen at 77 K. As a result,
we concluded that the multi-layer solenoid coil is applicable to the
primary winding and the closed solenoid coil is also applicable to
the secondary winding.
Index Terms—High-temperature superconductors, supercon-
ducting coils, superconducting traction transformers, transformer
windings.

I. INTRODUCTION

W E investigated the possibility of applying high- su-

perconducting traction transformers to the Shinkansen
type rolling stock. In order to achieve a lightweight design, the
traction transformer needs to have a special winding structure
unlike the experimental high- superconducting power trans-
formers fabricated until now [1]. The windings of the traction
transformer need to be arranged as closely as possible in a high
magnetic field [2]–[5].
In this study, we fabricated two high- superconducting
coils that simulated the winding of a high- superconducting
traction transformer. One is a multi-layer solenoid coil that
simulated the primary winding of the transformer. This coil
has five layers of a single Bi2223 superconducting tape. The
other is a closed solenoid coil that simulated the secondary
winding of the transformer. This coil has one layer of eight Fig. 1. Image of 4 MVA high-T superconducting transformer for rolling
parallel Bi2223 superconducting tapes. We measured the stock.
voltage–current, AC loss and current sharing characteristics of
these coils cooled in saturated liquid nitrogen at 77 K. II. CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
We performed conceptual design of a single-phase
Manuscript received August 5, 2002. 4 MVA-25 kV high- superconducting traction trans-
H. Kamijo is with the Applied Superconductivity Group, Railway Technical former for Shinkansen type rolling stock. The specifications
Research Institute, Kokubunji-city, Tokyo 185-8540, Japan (e-mail: hiroki@
rtri.or.jp). of the traction transformer listed in Table I. They are the
H. Hata and H. Fujimoto is with the Railway Technical Research Institute, same as the conventional ones now in use. A schematic view
Kokubunji-city, Tokyo 185-8540, Japan. is shown in Fig. 1. Previous work shows that the core-type
T. Bohono is with the Fuji Electric Corporate Research and Development,
Yokosuka-city, Kanagawa 240-0192, Japan. transformer is better than the shell-type transformer for the
K. Sakaki and H. Yamada are with the Fuji Electric Corporate, Shinagawa-ku, superconducting transformer for rolling stock [3]. The core
Tokyo 141-0032, Japan. has two legs to be kept at room temperature. We suppose that
M. Iwakuma and K. Funaki are with the Research Institute of Superconduc-
tivity, Kyushu University, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan. Bi2223 superconducting tapes are used for all windings, which
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2003.813121 have a high critical current and have a twisted multifilamentary
1051-8223/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE
2338 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 13, NO. 2, JUNE 2003
TABLE II
SPECIFICATIONS OF HIGH-T SUPERCONDUCTING COILS AND COPPER COIL
Fig. 2. Winding arrangement.
configuration. The transformer has a primary winding, four
secondary windings and a tertiary winding. The primary wind-
ings are placed around the two legs evenly and are connected in
parallel. Two secondary windings are placed around each leg.
The four secondary windings are independent of each other.
The tertiary windings are placed around the two legs evenly and
connected in parallel like the primary windings. The winding
arrangement is shown in Fig. 2. At each leg, the inner secondary
winding, the tertiary winding, the primary winding and the
outer secondary winding are arranged in this order from the
inside to the outside. The windings are installed into a GFRP
cryostat and cooled by subcooled liquid nitrogen at 66 K.
In the primary winding, the rated current is 160 A. The
winding is composed of two coils, located around each leg,
which are connected in parallel. The current capacity of one
coil is 80 A. This current value can be fed into a single super-
conducting tape with high performance at 66 K. The numbers
of layers and turns are 16 and 2,000 for each coil. Therefore,
we decided that the primary winding has a structure of a
single-strand multi-layer solenoid coil. To make the winding
compact, a bobbin is used for the innermost layer but not for
the other layers.
The secondary winding is composed of four separate coils.
For each coil, the rated current is 750 A. The current capacity
of single superconducting tape is not enough for the secondary
rated current at 66 K. The number of turns is 96, so that the sec-
ondary windings can be a single layer. Therefore, we considered
that the secondary winding can be composed of a multi-strand
single-layer solenoid coil. To make the current sharing among
the superconducting tapes uniform in the winding, the super-
conducting tapes must be transposed inside the layer.
III. FABRICATION
We fabricated two test coils, a multi-layer solenoid high-
superconducting coil and a closed single-layer one to simulate
the primary and secondary windings, in addition to a copper coil
for generating magnetic field that is applied to the test coils.
A. Multi-Layer Solenoid Coil
The specifications of the multi-layer solenoid supercon-
ducting coil that simulated the primary winding are shown
in Table II. The winding is wound by Bi2223 tape that has a
cross-section of 3.8 mm 0.27 mm including a PVF insulation
shield. The coil has five layers. The number of turns per
layer is 88, and the total number of turns is 440. The GFRP
bobbin, 64.4 mm in diameter, is used only for the innermost.
The following layer structure is adopted to ensure a gap for
electrical insulation and cooling channels. The GFRP spacers,
2 mm in thickness and 5 mm in width, are arranged directly
on the inner layer, one for every 20 degrees. An GFRP sheet
for insulation is wound on the spacers. The next outer layer is
wound on this sheet. The outer diameter of coil is 101.5 mm.
There are 10 voltage taps; the tap 0 is at the start of the winding
at the innermost layer (the first layer) and the tap 9 is the end
of winding at the outermost layer (the fifth layer). There are
10 thermocouples at the surfaces of windings in the first, third
and fifth layers. The rated current is 20 A at 77 K and the
maximum magnetic field 0.093 T at the center of innermost
layer generated by the copper coil connected in series.
B. Closed Solenoid Coil
The specifications of the closed solenoid superconducting
coil to simulate the secondary winding are shown in Table II.
The winding is composed of eight Bi2223 tapes that have a
cross-section of 3.8 mm 0.25 mm including a PVF insulation
shield. The outer diameter of the GFRP bobbin is 80 mm. The
number of turns is 64. The transpositions among the supercon-
ducting tapes are performed 15 times every four turns. There
are two voltage taps in the start and the end of the winding. Ten
KAMIJO et al.: FABRICATION OF WINDING MODEL OF HIGH- SUPERCONDUCTING TRANSFORMER FOR RAILWAY ROLLING STOCK
Fig. 3. Voltage–current characteristics of the multi-layer solenoid high-T
superconducting coil.
thermocouples were attached to the surface of the winding. The
rated current is 105 A at 77 K and the maximum magnetic
field 0.29 T at the center of winding generated by the copper
coil connected in series.
C. Copper Coil for External Magnetic Field
In the designed superconducting traction transformer, the
maximum magnetic field applied to the windings is about 0.3 T.
However, the self-magnetic field of two superconducting coils
is much lower than the practical level, because the transport
current of the test coils is small and the test coils have too few
number of turns. Then, the copper coil for the external magnetic
field is arranged on the outside of the superconducting test coil
in cryostat. The specifications of the copper coil are shown in
Table II. The copper coil has ten layers. The number of turns
per layer is 80, and the total number of turns is 800. In order to
change the external magnetic field, there are five taps every two
layers. The copper coil is connected in series with the test coil.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
We measured the voltage–current, AC loss and current
sharing characteristics of two superconducting coils cooled by
the saturated liquid nitrogen at 77 K. The superconducting coils
are tested in the DC and AC operations.
A. Multi-Layer Solenoid Coil
The voltage–current characteristics are measured in DC op-
erations when the external magnetic field is changed by connec-
tions of the tap in the copper coil. Fig. 3 shows the voltage–cur-
rent characteristics of the multi-layer solenoid superconducting
coil in a self-magnetic field. In this figure, the observed voltage
comes from the start of the first layer to the end of each layer.
The voltage of the first and second layers is higher than that
of the outer layers. The increase rate of the voltage seems to
be affected not only by the magnetic field increase between the
inner and outer layers, but by other causes. Therefore, the su-
perconducting tape of the inside layers may have received some
damages at the manufacturing process of this coil. The diam-
eter of this coil is small. The bending strain in the inside layers
is the same level as the degradation of the superconducting tape
begins to occur. The diameter of the windings for the designed
2339
Fig. 4. AC loss characteristics of the multi-layer solenoid high-T
superconducting coil.
Fig. 5. Results of current sharing characteristics of the closed solenoid high-T
superconducting coil. In case that the current is 105 A at 50 Hz.
high- superconducting traction transformer is larger than that
of the tested coil, so that we believe that the degradation of su-
perconducting windings will not occur.
The AC loss is measured by an electrical method [6] in op-
erating only the multi-layer solenoid coil without the copper
coil for external magnetic field, in order to eliminate the influ-
ence of coupling between the high- superconducting coil and
the copper coil. Fig. 4 shows the AC loss characteristics of the
multi-layer solenoid coil. The observed AC loss power increases
in proportional to the 2.5–2.7th power of current up to rated cur-
rent. When these results are converted into the AC loss per one
cycle, there is almost no frequency dependence. It is considered
that the hysteresis loss is the main component of the losses and
there is almost no additional AC loss up to the rated current. In
the overcurrent mode, the flux flow loss must increase. When
the current is 60 A, the observed loss power has almost no dif-
ference between different frequency.
In the DC and AC operations, the temperature of the winding
hardly increases and we don’t find any problem for operations
up to the rated current. We concluded from these results that the
multi-layer solenoid coil is suitable as a primary winding.
B. Closed Solenoid Coil
After winding the coil, we measured the current sharing
among the eight superconducting tapes. The branch current
2340
Fig. 6. Voltage–current characteristics of the closed solenoid high-T
superconducting coil.
Fig. 7. AC loss characteristics of the closed solenoid high-T superconducting
coil.
in each tape was measured with a Rogowski coil when the
transport current is 50, 75 and 105 A at 50 Hz. The observed
waveforms of branch current are shown in Fig. 5 when the
total current is 105 A in a self-magnetic field. The branch
current flows almost uniformly within 86–113%. There is no
difference in the phases of the current.
The voltage–current characteristics are measured in DC op-
erations when the external magnetic field is changed by connec-
tions of the tap in the copper coil. Fig. 6 shows the voltage–cur-
rent characteristics of the closed solenoid superconducting coil
at several levels of external magnetic field. In this result, the ob-
served voltage includes the component from connection resis-
tance, because there are two junctions of the superconducting
tapes between the voltage terminals. When the current is lower
than 50 A, the voltage is mainly due to the connection resis-
tance, because the voltage increases in proportion to the current
and the voltage is independent of the external magnetic field.
When the current is lager than 50 A, the flux flow loss begins
to increase. The voltage depends on the magnetic field, and the
voltage by the flux flow becomes a main cause in the high ex-
ternal magnetic field.
The AC loss is measured by the electrical method in operating
only the closed solenoid coil, which is the same as the case of the
multi-layer solenoid coil. The observed AC loss power increases
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 13, NO. 2, JUNE 2003
in proportion to the 2.5–2.8th power of current up to the rated
current. The AC loss per one cycle is also shown in Fig. 7, where
there is almost no frequency dependence. It is considered that
the hysteresis loss is the main component of the losses and there
is no additional AC loss up to the rated current. This result also
shows that the current sharing among the eight superconducting
tapes is practically uniform because of the transposition of the
superconducting tapes inside a layer.
The temperature of the winding slightly increased when the
copper coil for the external magnetic field is used at higt cur-
rents, because the copper coil generates heat. The heating is
acceptable for the DC and AC operations. We concluded from
these results that the closed solenoid coil is also suitable for the
secondary winding in principle.
V. CONCLUSION
We fabricated two high- superconducting coils that
simulate the windings of the high- superconducting traction
transformer for rolling stock. The voltage–current, AC loss and
current sharing characteristics of these superconducting coils
cooled by the saturated liquid nitrogen at 77 K are measured
in the DC and AC operations.
As a result, we concluded the following
• The single-strand multi-layer solenoid coil, in which the
bobbin is used for the innermost layer but not for the other
layers, is applicable to the primary winding
• The multi-strand single-layer solenoid coil, in which the
superconducting tapes are transposed inside a layer, is also
applicable to the secondary winding
Furthermore, we will measure the over-current load charac-
teristics and the performance of these high- superconducting
coils cooled by the subcooled liquid nitrogen at 66 K. The data
required for development of the high- superconducting trac-
tion transformer for rolling stock is collected.
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